A New Beginning
by Werewolf String Quartet
Summary: A rewrite of the Pilot episode if Dean was the younger brother, but Sam still left for Stanford.


The first thing Sam Winchester sees that morning is a tuft of spiky blond hair sticking from the armrest of his couch. Immediately, he snatches the gun he keeps hidden in the cabinet beside the couch and raises it. He walks slowly, with caution, to the person on the couch – and stops.

He knows that face. Has memorized it since he was four, from the curve of the mouth, shape of the eyes and the sharp cheekbones to the long lashes.

Dean.

Sam frowns – what the hell was Dean doing here? Shouldn't he be staying with Dad, saving people, hunting things?

He kicks the sofa softly, and Dean wakes up with a surprised grunt. He blinks bleary green eyes, and raises his arm in a vaguely threatening way. Sam snorts. Obviously, Dad has either been too lax with the training since Sam left, or he's been working Dean too hard. Sam would bet all the money he has (which isn't much, admittedly), that it was the latter.

"Oh," Dean says, "hey, Sammy."

"What are you doing here?"

"Straight to the point, huh?"

"Dean." Sam says firmly.

Dean sighs and starts to answer, but he is interrupted by the arrival of a hot blonde chick in short shorts and a Smurfs shirt.

"Sam," she says, and then she sees Dean. Her eyes widen, and she takes a step back "Who is that?"

"Oh, that." Sam replies, sounding harried and slightly guilty, "Jess, that's my little brother, Dean."

"Hey." Dean grins, nods to her shirt. "I love the Smurfs."

Jess smiles uncomfortably, "let me just put something on."

"No, no, it's okay." Dean protests. He smiles charismatically, "anyways, I just need to borrow your boyfriend here. Family business."

"No." Sam folds his arms, "Whatever you have to say, you can say it here."

Dean looks around hesitantly, and then nods a bit. "Okay. Dad hasn't been home for a few days."

Sam's eyes flash and he says in an all too casual tone, "So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later"

Dean ducks his head, smiling softly. Then he looks up, "Dad's been on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days."

His face pinches, lips thin, and Sam says tightly, "Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."

Sam puts on a hoodie and a pair of jeans, and takes his brother down a flight of stairs.

"Dean, you can't just break in the house and use it as your personal hotel room, and expect me to go with you on some stupid mission to find Dad."

"Well, why not?" Dean argues. They stop in the middle of their descent. "He's your Dad too."

"Not since that night, he isn't." Sam retorts, and immediately regrets it.

Dean looks like Sam has personally slapped him in the face, and Sam deflates.

"Look, Dean, you remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine." Sam's trying to be comforting. It's not working.

"Not for this long," Dean argues, "Dad's missing, and I need you to help me find him."

"No you don't." Dean may be young, but he's one of the best damn hunters Sam knows.

"Well, I want you to. You gonna come or not?"

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

"Because I swore I was done with hunting. For good."

Past tense. Dean smirks triumphantly, "it wasn't that bad."

They start down the stairs again, and Sam sighs. "Dean, when you told him you were scared of the dark, he gave you a .45."

"What else should he do? And I put the .45 to good use."

"He should have told you 'don't be afraid of the dark.'"

"Don't be afraid of the dark? Of course I should be afraid of the dark; I know what's out there!"

"Look – the way we grew up. It wasn't natural. The way Dad raised us, his obsession after Mom died. I mean, I get that's all you know, but you didn't know what it was _before_. Mom wouldn't have wanted this for us, Dean!"

"We save people."

There's a pause, and Sam looks away. He sighs, "We were raised as warriors." He tries, as a last-ditch effort.

"So what? You run away, try to have some normal, apple-pie life?"

"Not normal. Safe."

Dean's eyes narrow. "Safe as in how _safe _I was when you left me at fourteen?"

Ouch. That one struck a nerve, and Sam looks away. Dean had a point, anyways.

"What was he hunting?"

Dean's look of guilt, guilt that had surfaced after he said his last retort, clears.

They've reached the Impala now, and Sam smiles at the sight of it. It looks exactly the same, sleek and smooth and powerful, and Dean runs a hand over her lovingly. She's home, the only home they have, and Sam knows that, remembers playing with Legos and those war solider things with Dean in the back, remembers Dean's small head resting on his lap as he sleeps, wrestling Dean to the floor in an attempt to get a comic book as Dad says _stop it right the hell now or I swear to god I will turn this car around_.

Dean pops the trunk and then the spare tire compartment. He takes out a shotgun and props the top up as he rummages through the clutter. "Now where did I put it?"

"Dad gave you the car?"

"For my sixteenth birthday," Dean grins proudly.

"Why didn't you go with him?" Sam presses.

"What is this, 20 questions? I didn't go because I had my own gig. Down in New Orleans."

"You're eighteen!" Sam exclaims. _Jesus_! Dad hadn't even let him go on a hunt alone those few months he spent with his Dad at eighteen.

"I'm an adult."

"Barely! And what about school, huh? Did he make you quit the moment you could? Earlier? You know how old most Hunters are? Thirty, probably older: eighteen year olds shouldn't go hunting alone. You could have been killed before you can even legally drink, or, hell, before you graduate High School, before you could legally drive! You could have been seriously hurt!"

"Well I'm not and I didn't." Dean snaps, "So leave it. And I graduated last year."

Dean snatches a few papers out, and shoves it into Sam's hands.

"Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy went missing." Dean points to a paper with a large black and white picture of a teen splashed on the front page. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA. And get this:"

Dean takes out his cell phone, presses play.

Their Dad's voice comes out, hazy and indistinct. It's marred with static, but they can still make it out.

"Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger." Dean presses stop.

"That's EVP." Sam realizes. Dean nods.

"Shit like what happened to the guy has been going on for twenty years now, all on the same stretch of road. So when I got the voicemail, I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got."

Dean presses play again. This time, it's a woman's voice, clear as a bell and as musical. "I can never go home."

Sam sighs.

* * *

Sam throws his stuff into the duffle, hoodies and jeans and shirts and, when Jess isn't looking, the knife he hides under his pillow.

"So you're just taking off?" Jess asks, disbelieving. "I mean, you don't talk about your family at all and then some kid comes in saying he's your little brother and you just _take off?_"

"Sadly, he is my little brother." Sam replies. "And it's fine. Just a little family drama. I'll be back in no time."

"What about the interview?"

"It's gonna be fine. Like I said: no time at all. I promise." Sam stands up, gives Jessica a long and steady kiss. Then he hefts his duffle up and heads out the door.

Jessica sighs. "You could have at least told me where you were going," she tells the now empty room.

* * *

Dean pulls the Impala to a stop at Centennial Highway, in Jerchio, California, and there in the harsh light of day, Sam sees how the four years have treated his little brother.

Dean's thin, and his father's old leather jacket seems to hang off him, like he's a kid playing dress up. And in a way, he is. Sam knows Dean can cook, can look after himself better than most people, so he probably stressed. And why is he stressed? Because Sam wasn't there.

Well, that's going to change. Once they finish this job, Sam is dragging Dean to Stanford, getting him to apply there or somewhere else because he knows Dean is smart, and _making_ him settle down.

Dean also looks older, grimmer, like he's seen things that other people, _normal _people, would have never seen. Which is true, but there's no reason for him to look almost like a war vet.

The younger Winchester pulls out a badge, identifying him as federal marshal. They bullshit their way through, and Dean almost gives them away in the end when he remarks that "that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys" when the police says they don't know what happened. Well, that and the fact that no matter how many child prodigy lies Sam tries to spin, everyone's going to be at least a little suspicious of an eighteen year old and a twenty-two year old federal marshal.

* * *

They hear the story of Constance Welch in a diner by a Goth girl, and she sounds like a classic case of a hitchhiking spirit. In the library, Dean types in 'Female Murder Hitchhiking' and 'Female Murder Centennial Highway' into the search box at the _Jericho Herald'_s webpage, coming up with no results. Sam types in 'Female Suicide Centennial Highway' and comes up with one, prompting Dean to glare at his brother.

Constance Welch had a husband, and two children. She was twenty four. She jumped off the bridge when her two children died.

* * *

Sam looks at Dean from the corner of his eyes, and thinks, once again, that Dean is _eighteen_, and that even the vengeful spirit was living a normal life at eighteen.

That night, Sam and Dean wait at the bridge for Constance Welch. Once again, they argue about their life and their future and their mother. Then, rudely, the Impala gets possessed by Constance and tries to run them off the bridge. They jump off, Sam hanging on the ledge and getting the absolute _pleasure _of watching his brother, the brother he sworn to protect (and he's been doing such a great job too, a malicious voice whispers in his head, sarcasm dripping like acid.) fall off the bridge and plunge into the muddy waters of the river below, just like Constance Welch so many years ago.

Then Dean surfaces, grimy and covered in mud, but he's fine and he even gives Sam a thumb up, and Sam laughs out loud in relief.

Dean smells like a toilet.

Sam hates to admit it, but that was fun. The adrenalin rush made everything brighter, sharper, in a way it never was in those four years. And he and Dean works great together, like a well-oiled machine.

But this is the last time. Really.

* * *

Dad's been using the motel too, and the room isn't anything like how he would have left it. It's too messy. Every vertical surface has something pinned to it – newspaper clippings, pages from books, pictures, notes, maps. Books lay around the room, some untouched and others flipped to random pages. A line of salt is on the carpet, and so is a half-eaten cheeseburger.

Sam and Dean step around them, noting the pages and the pictures and the salt. They look at what he had pinned, and they realize their Dad figured it out.

Constance Welch is a Woman in White.

It's time to talk to her husband.

* * *

Of course, Lady Luck is not on their side today (but when was she ever?) and Dean gets arrested when he gets out of the motel. He warns Sam, and is escorted to the local police station. Sam is still free.

Dean is interrogated by the local sheriff, and Sam takes the Impala and talks to Joseph Welch.

The sheriff shows Dean his Dad's journal, and the fact that his Dad is missing is finalizes in Dean's mind.

Sam interrogates Joseph, who reveals that their father had also talked to him, and says that his marriage to Constance Welch was a good one.

Dean fends off the sheriff, who gets increasingly aggressive, who tells Dean the protection symbols are satanic and that he and his father killed those ten missing persons.

Sam calls the police, says that there were shots fired over at Whiteford Road.

Dad left Dean a message: it says 'DEAN 35-111'.

Constance Welch was buried in a plot behind Joseph's old place on Breckenridge.

* * *

Sam gets way too close to Constance Welch for his liking.

"You can't kill me. I'm not unfaithful. Never have been." He tells her.

She forces herself over him, kissing him hungrily.

"Now you are."

Sam struggle, pulling for the keys. She rears back, her face flashing from that of an ethereally beautiful young girl's to a rotting corpse, and she disappears. Sam screams in pain when she puts her fingers through his chest, and the windows explode.

Constance disappears once again, revealing Dean, holding a lightly smoking revolver.

Sam drives the Impala into the house; Constance is dragged down to hell by her own children.

* * *

The small apartment smells of warm cookies and flowery shampoo. Sam smiles when he hears the sound of the shower running, the grin only widening when he sees the cookies. _Missed you, _a note on the cookies say, _love you!_

The elder Winchester picks one up and bites into it, savoring the taste of the warm chocolate and the sweet dough. Dean stumbles in reluctantly, but crashes on the couch.

Sam walks to his room, loving his bed and closes his eyes. All he wants is to sleep, preferably for a long time.

Something warm and wet drips on his forehead, and he twitches. He wants it to go away.

It drips again, and this time he opens his eyes.

Jessica.

Jessica is on the ceiling, pale and lifeless and broken, except for a vivid red line over her stomach. Her white dress and beautiful golden hair are sticking to the ceiling, and a hysterical part of Sam's brain informs him that according to the laws of gravity, it should be hanging down. The rest of him is too focused on Jess, and time seemed to slow to a crawl, to snail's pace. Her eyes are wide but unseeing, and he is wrong the first time. Jessica's skin isn't pale; it's chalk white. Bloodless and corpse-like.

Then she bursts into flame. And at first, it looks like she has a brilliant, fiery halo behind her. It grows and grows and grows, until Dean smashes in the door and forcibly pulls him out of the rapidly burning room.

Sam thinks he might have screamed Jess' name.

* * *

"Take your brother out as fast as you can. Now, Sam, go!"

Daddy's voice echoes in Sammy's head, and he rushes out the hallway with his small feet. It's hot, too hot, but he keeps running, because he knows he's the big brother, and it's his job to take care of Dean.

Dean's heavy, but Sammy doesn't care. Stubbornly, he keeps running and running until he reaches the front door, and he stands on his tippy-toes and opens the lock despite all the times Mommy told him not to.

The air is cold, too cold after the heat of the house, and the grass is wet under his bare feet. But he runs and keeps running until he has to stop. Then, he stares at his home.

It's pretty and bright, and Sammy keeps looking at it even though it hurts his eyes. He wonders what his Mommy and Daddy are doing, if they are putting it out, because that's what Mommies and Daddies do, right? They protect Sammy and Dean and they never, _ever_ get hurt and cry.

Then Daddy runs out, takes Sammy and Dean into his arms, and runs. Behind him, Sammy feels hot, too hot, and he cries out. Dean is silent in his arms, and Sammy wonders why he isn't crying.

He doesn't know why this would happen, why God would do this to them, because they were nice and they didn't do anything bad. Sammy even ate all of his vegetables and prayed every night. Okay, so maybe not _every _night. Is that God has decided to punish him?

He wants to know where his Mommy is, why she isn't coming out. Daddy sets them on the hood of the 'Pala, and they watch. Sammy is mesmerized by the beautiful roaring fire, and he wonders if his Mommy is still in there, or if she ran out using the back door. He thinks so, because Mommy is _Mommy, _and Mommy can't be hurt, like Superman.

Later, he realizes that he was wrong. But it's okay, because Mommy is in Heaven now, and she's one of the angels watching over him and Dean.

* * *

Sam sits on the hood of the Impala with his baby brother, and he stares at the flickering flames dancing in the building. It dances like angels on a head of a pin, and it is grotesque and hellish and horrifying, and Sam can't look away.

He stares at the firemen, trying in vain to put the blaze out. He wants to tell them to don't bother trying, because it's too late anyways, and anything worth salvaging is already gone.

Sam wonders what Jessica is doing, if she's wasting away and crumbling into ash like the hundreds of dead bodies he's seen before, or if she's writhing and screaming in agony, her pleas and shrieks lost in the roar of the fire. Wonders if her soft flesh is blistering or blackening, if her hair had caught fire or had then remained untouched and beautiful.

He wonders if she looked like his mother had.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Dean move. Sam finally tears his eyes away from the spectacle to see his brother move to the open trunk of the Impala. Oh. Right.

Sam looks down at the shotgun in his hands, and he follows his little brother.

He looks back, and he knows something. He knows that the yellow eyed son of a bitch his father had been hunting ever since their mother's death was the cause of this. Knows that Jessica is –was – an innocent, and that she didn't deserve it, any of it. And he feels so angry. He feels furious. It burns as hot as the fire, and he knows that he will avenge Jessica, avenge his mother, if it's the last goddamn thing he does.

He roughly throws his shotgun into the trunk and slams it down.

"We have work to do."

* * *

**This is basically my "pilot episode" for a younger!dean au I was thinking of writing, and I think it turned out pretty well. It's also a character study for the Sam Winchester of this universe, and personally I think he wasn't _too _different. **

**Please R&R. They are the writer's special magic juice.**


End file.
